I cannot for the life of my figure out why this bump map still doesn't look right in-game

This updated texture has it even worse

I may just make both of those textures completely flat in the center. The logo portions and a thin border around them are already supposed to be mostly flat-ish, but somehow that's not working out right.

Also updated this one

I think I'll shrink the center hexagon to more closely resemble the texture it's replacing and differentiate it from last night's light more.

And with that the normal portion of the S'pht textures is done. Next week or two will be special S'pht textures (switches and media and stuff) and then Alpha 4.

With any luck I might finally, finally have a chance to look at the stuff that Lia and Aaron have been contributing tomorrow night, unless a personal emergency I'm semi-expecting spoils that opportunity.

With any luck I might finally, finally have a chance to look at the stuff that Lia and Aaron have been contributing tomorrow night, unless a personal emergency I'm semi-expecting spoils that opportunity.

I might actually be able to finally figure out the pull request process properly sometime tonight, so that seems like perfect timing!

New textures look great as always.

People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.

“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe happy man, nor make any celebration of joy.” —Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”

So I intended to submit a PR properly, but I’m tired and fairly emotionally drained after this week (I’ll recount why if you’re interested at some point, but not tonight; it’s not really relevant here anyway). I uploaded my current (I think) version of the map merge folder to Zippyshare in case Pfhorrest wants to play my versions. If you need confirmation on which files have been updated, but not submitted as pull requests, I’ll look at them for certain tomorrow. I don’t… think Lia or anyone else has worked on these since my last changes, but I can’t be 100% sure on that, so I’d hold off on overwriting everything for certain. I’m certain all my versions of the physics models are at least as recent and quite likely more recent than the latest PRs (I definitely changed the physics of the first three Lh’owon levels to fix the guided S’pht’Kr bolts), and the same goes for my versions of the maps for “Third Rock from Lh’owon” and “Flight of Icarus”. I probably also worked on “Pfhor får lamm” since my last successful PR. I can’t recall if I submitted anything else that didn’t get worked into the current map merge yet, but if I did, it probably wasn’t important. I might’ve started on “The Incredible Hulk”, but I don’t recall doing so, and I doubt I’d have gotten very far.

I won’t be offended if people adjust the texturing/shading/polygon heights of the section I added to “Third Rock”, BTW; I’m not satisfied with the texturing/shading anyway, as I haven’t really learned how to use Eternal’s textures properly. The bump maps in particular just keep throwing me off; I feel like I’m hallucinating every time I try to evaluate the map lighting. I’m sure I’ll get used to them eventually.

Pfhorrest, you may wish to talk to Dr Sumner about playtesting 1.2 on TC. I think he’d be a much better judge than the rest of us about whether the levels are fair, since he’s probably at least one of the ten best Marathon players on the planet, and he mentioned getting fed up with “Deep into the Grotto” and quitting (he seems to have had few problems with the first four chapters, though).

People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.

“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe happy man, nor make any celebration of joy.” —Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”

I’ll see if I can make an effort to figure out the pull request process today, but I can’t promise anything; I’m a bit of a wreck, and probably be will be for months. I’ll post an explanation when I manage to write one that satisfies me (probably as its own thread). The single word “grief” is the only descriptor I’ve found that feels remotely appropriate as a short explanation. No one needs to worry about my physical wellbeing, but I may be rather absent-minded for the foreseeable future. (Also, I’ll be on vacation from the 23rd until the 3rd.)

People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.

“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe happy man, nor make any celebration of joy.” —Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”

Hope you're okay, Aaron. And thanks, Pfhorrest. Lava isn't currently problematic for me, and my housing issues got resolved, but in a manner that seriously ratchets up my scheduling, hence the lack of updates to Redux of late.

I’ll be sad for awhile, and I may not be able to absorb complex information as easily as I normally would be, but I’m almost certain I’ll be OK in the long run. I just don’t know how long “the long run” will be.

I’m working on two longer recollections, one of which is almost finished. I’ll post one in the Chronicles thread, since my friend literally named the scenario and created the central part of the first real level, fairly soon; I’m just reading over it once more and making some last-minute revisions. I’ll probably post the other as its own thread in a couple of days; I certainly hope to have it done before I leave for vacation.

(I hadn’t planned two different recollections – my previous post only mentions one writing because I only planned one writing – but I frequently underestimate how much I have to say. As a particularly extreme example, last year I sat down intending to write a short essay and, after no more than six weeks, I’d written 70,000 words. Most of my word count overshoots aren’t that extreme, to be fair.)

People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.

“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe happy man, nor make any celebration of joy.” —Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”

Forgot to hand over those Wasp changes I talked about a few months ago. Since then, the only thing I've added besides are some minor changes to the Cyborg Controller. Guess now is as good a time to put them out as any:

Since only the Shapes and Physics were changed, that's all I included this time around to save a bit of space. Any previous changes can still be found in Round 5.

I've also included a slight edit of Hysterical Womb as well, which allows the Controllers to awaken on the player's entry into their respective chambers (starting their idle sequence), and gives them a second Normal polygon to breathe in (allowing their idle sequence to play at all). The alpha 3 version was used, though I don't remember any updates to this map in particular.

I can’t remember if I updated “Hysterical Womb” since the alpha 3 release, mostly because I can’t remember when the alpha 3 release was; I may have, but it probably mostly consisted of door sounds and maybe a few platform speed changes. IDK. I can probably redo them if necessary.

People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.

“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe happy man, nor make any celebration of joy.” —Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”

Looks like Alpha 3 came out on 5/18 and your copy of Hysterical Womb has a modified date of 5/28, so you probably did update it, though I don't completely trust modified dates.

If you think your changes to it were very minor, I think I will sub in People's version for Alpha 4 and then maybe we can merge the features from the two together somehow in the future.

Also I'm not going to have time to propagate the physics changes in Peoples' latest update through all of the level physics in time for Alpha 4, though the main Physics file will be his version, so someone at some point will have to go through and deal with the level physics eventually. I'd love it if someone else could, but I'll get around to it eventually if not.

And you know what, I think for for now, for Alpha 4, I'm going to manually (Finder-)merge Aaron's maps folder into mine, and then we can sort out whatever gets lost or overwritten from that later.

I’m almost certain my changes were fairly minor; in fact, they were probably so minor that if someone sends me People’s version within the next day, I can probably redo them before leaving for vacation. I can’t imagine the process taking me more than ten minutes. I don’t think I changed anything specific about the level apart from adding ambient sound objects and possibly fixing slow platforms or changing S’pht doors to Pfhor doors (I can’t recall if there were any of either).

I also have another video of “Flight of Icarus” with some amusing monster behaviour, which I’ll post a link to once it finishes uploading. (Before that video uploads, I have a 110-minute Chronicles video queued that will probably take at least another twelve minutes to upload.) The level won’t need to be remade or anything; I’ve been able to replicate the glitch with the Troopers in “My Own Private Thermopylae” as well. (The Hulk glitch could probably be replicated, too, but the Cyborgs in that area of the level are so dangerous that I don’t possess the skill level to do it. Flame cyborgs are arguably the most dangerous enemy in the game, especially at close quarters.)

I probably won’t have the time or the patience to propagate the physics changes throughout all 52 levels before leaving for vacation, but after I get back, I may take a look at it. I may need an explanation of what needs to be changed, though, especially since I’m not entirely sure how Eternal’s physics work yet.

People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.

“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe happy man, nor make any celebration of joy.” —Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”

People's version is in that file that he linked a few posts up, so if you want to grab that and reinstitute your changes before I finish off Alpha 4 tonight that'd be awesome. You can just post the file here and I'll manually merge it.

Sounds good. I’ll hopefully get to it within a few hours - I’m working on another Chronicles film at present and don’t have the game set up to where I can command-tab out of it. What time (Pacific, I presume) are you planning to post the alpha? I’ll try to get it done at least an hour before then.

Edit: here; the attached version of the level should contain most of the same changes I made before. Most of the changes were just to liquid and platform sounds; I don’t think there were even any slow platforms I had to change. I didn’t double-check all the platforms to make sure they were Pfhor doors/platforms, though. Might do that again later, but I’m pretty tired already.

I apparently forgot to encode the “Flight of Icarus” film earlier. Doing that now. It’s kind of amusing.

People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.

“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe happy man, nor make any celebration of joy.” —Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”